This invention relates to article handling systems, and more particularly to such systems using conveyors to convey and sort articles automatically with the minimum amount of manual handling. The present invention is directed particularly to that portion of the system which conveys articles from the passenger check-in areas to the baggage coding area where the operator directs tagged luggage to its proper destination.
A variety of prior art airline baggage sorting systems have been in use for some time. Such systems generally attempt to keep track of bag locations and of their intended designations. However, experience shows that such systems are unreliable, cannot be activated or stopped without the loss of data and loss of timing relationships, and some prior art baggage handling systems are so sophisticated and expensive and they require such a team of highly-trained technical personnel to operate and maintain them that they are not cost effective and become unreliable in practice. Such sophisticated prior art systems utilize complex computer control and have proven faulty due to down time during maintenance and complexity of repairs or by the elaborate changes required to make minor adjustments or minor changes in the baggage handling procedures. Moreover, many prior art baggage handling systems during "rush hour" periods directly overload the coding operator. The conveyor leading to the coding operator's station floods up with baggage; the coding operator in desperation is forced to remove the excess baggage by hand, such that the floor space around the operator becomes awkwardly piled up with baggage, thereby causing numerous individual items to become overlooked and unpredictably delayed.